U.S. Senate (2013–present)
Elections 2012 On September 14, 2011, Warren declared her intention to run for the
Democratic nomination for the
2012 election in Massachusetts for the
U.S. Senate. Republican
Scott Brown had won the seat in a
2010 special election after
Ted Kennedy's death. A week later, a video of Warren speaking in
Andover went
viral on the Internet. In it, Warren responds to the charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes is "class warfare" by saying that no one grew rich in the U.S. without depending on infrastructure paid for by the rest of society: President Obama later
echoed her sentiments in a
2012 election campaign speech. Warren ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination and won it on June 2, 2012, at the state Democratic convention with a record 95.77% of the votes of delegates. She encountered significant opposition from business interests. In August, the political director for the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce commented that "no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren". Warren nonetheless raised $39 million for her campaign, more than any other Senate candidate in 2012, and showed, according to
The New York Times, "that it was possible to run against the big banks without Wall Street money and still win". Warren received a prime-time speaking slot at the
2012 Democratic National Convention on September 5, 2012. She positioned herself as a champion of a beleaguered middle class that "has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered". According to Warren, "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged." Warren said Wall Street CEOs "wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs" and that they "still strut around congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them".
2018 On January 6, 2017, in an email to supporters, Warren announced that she would be running for a second term as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, writing, "The people of Massachusetts didn't send me to Washington to roll over and play dead while Donald Trump and his team of billionaires, bigots, and Wall Street bankers crush the working people of our Commonwealth and this country. ... This is no time to quit." In the 2018 election, Warren defeated Republican nominee
Geoff Diehl, 60% to 36%.
2024 Warren won a third Senate term, defeating Republican nominee John Deaton, an attorney, 59.6% to 40.4%. This election marked the first time that Warren had lost
Bristol County while running for the office. Warren underperformed
Kamala Harris, who won the state by 25 points in the concurrent
presidential election, as well as every county.
Tenure On November 6, 2012, Warren defeated Brown with 53.7% of the vote. She is the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, Vice President
Joe Biden swore Warren in on January 3, 2013. At Warren's first Banking Committee hearing in February 2013, she pressed several banking regulators to say when they had last taken a Wall Street bank to trial and said, "I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial'." Videos of Warren's questioning amassed more than one million views in a matter of days. At a March Banking Committee hearing, Warren asked
Treasury Department officials why criminal charges were not brought against
HSBC for
its money laundering practices. Warren compared money laundering to drug possession, saying: "If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to go to jail ... But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night." In May 2013, Warren sent letters to the
Justice Department, the
Securities and Exchange Commission, and the
Federal Reserve questioning their decisions that settling would be more fruitful than going to court. Also in May, saying that students should get "the same great deal that banks get", Warren introduced the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, which would allow students to take out government education loans at the same rate that banks pay to borrow from the federal government, 0.75%.
Independent senator
Bernie Sanders endorsed her bill, saying: "The only thing wrong with this bill is that [she] thought of it and I didn't". By the following year, Warren's attempts to pass any student loan reform were blocked. During the 2014 election cycle, Warren was a top Democratic fundraiser. After the election, Warren was appointed to become the first-ever Strategic Adviser of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, a position created for her. The appointment added to speculation that Warren would run for president in 2016. , November 2015 (3:28) In early 2015, President Obama urged Congress to approve the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed
free trade agreement between the United States and 11 Asian and South American countries. Warren criticized the TPP, arguing that the dispute resolution mechanism in the agreement and labor protections for American workers therein were insufficient; her objections were in turn criticized by Obama. Saying "despite the progress we've made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy", in July 2015 Warren,
John McCain,
Maria Cantwell, and
Angus King reintroduced the 21st Century
Glass–Steagall Act, a modern version of the Banking Act of 1933. The legislation was intended to reduce the American taxpayer's risk in the financial system and the likelihood of future financial crises. In a September 20, 2016, hearing, Warren called on
Wells Fargo CEO
John Stumpf to resign, adding that he should be "criminally investigated" over Wells Fargo's
opening of two million checking and credit-card accounts without the customers' consent. In December 2016, Warren gained a seat on the
Senate Armed Services Committee, which
The Boston Globe called "a high-profile perch on one of the chamber's most powerful committees" that would "fuel speculation about a possible 2020 bid for president". During the debate on Senator
Jeff Sessions's nomination for
United States attorney general in February 2017, Warren quoted a letter
Coretta Scott King had written Senator
Strom Thurmond in 1986 when Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship. This prohibited Warren from further participating in the debate on Sessions's nomination, and Warren instead read King's letter while streaming live online. In rebuking Warren, Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor, "She was warned. She was given an explanation.
Nevertheless, she persisted." On October 3, 2017, during Wells Fargo chief executive
Timothy J. Sloan's appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, Warren called on him to resign, saying, "At best you were incompetent, at worst you were complicit." On July 17, 2019, Warren and Representative
Al Lawson introduced legislation that would make low-income college students eligible for benefits under the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) according to the College Student Hunger Act of 2019. In November 2020, Warren was named a candidate for
Secretary of the Treasury in the
Biden Administration. Warren was at the Capitol to participate in the
2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters
attacked the Capitol. She called it an "attempted
coup and act of insurrection egged on by a corrupt president to overthrow our democracy", and the perpetrators "domestic terrorists." The day after the attack, Warren joined the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation to call for Trump's immediate removal from office through the invocation of the
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or impeachment. Throughout 2024 and 2025, Warren supported the
IRS Direct File effort. Warren was rated among the top 10 most popular senators in an April 2024 poll by Morning Consult.
Role in the 2016 presidential election in
Manchester, New Hampshire, October 2016 In the run-up to the
2016 United States presidential election, supporters put Warren forward as a possible presidential candidate, but she repeatedly said she would not run for president in 2016. In October 2013, she joined the other 15 women Democratic senators in signing a letter that encouraged
Hillary Clinton to run. There was much speculation about Warren being added to the Democratic ticket as a vice-presidential candidate. On June 9, 2016, after the
California Democratic primary, Warren formally endorsed Clinton for president. In response to questions when she endorsed Clinton, Warren said that she believed herself to be ready to be vice president, but she was not being vetted. On July 7,
CNN reported that Warren was on a five-person
short list to be Clinton's
running mate. Clinton eventually chose
Tim Kaine. Until her June endorsement, Warren was neutral during the Democratic primary but made public statements that she was cheering
Bernie Sanders on. In June, Warren endorsed and campaigned for Clinton. She called
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, dishonest, uncaring, and "a loser". ===
119th United States Congress Committee assignments=== Source:
Current •
Committee on Armed Services •
Subcommittee on Personnel (Ranking Member) •
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support •
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces •
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (Ranking Member) •
Subcommittee on Digital Assets •
Subcommittee on Economic Policy •
Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection •
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development •
Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance •
Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment •
Committee on Finance •
Special Committee on Aging ==2020 presidential campaign==